


lethargy got a hold of me

by The-Immortal-Moon (LunaKat)



Series: 2019 New Year's Resolution (Year of Bastille) [8]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Homunculus Edward Elric, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 16:04:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21018503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaKat/pseuds/The-Immortal-Moon
Summary: “Alphonse,” the creature begins, frosty with accusation, and Al feels a chill drip down his spine.





	lethargy got a hold of me

The feeling of a cool gaze on the back of his neck makes Al freeze.

His heart migrates to his throat and stays there, pounding against the walls of his windpipe, as he turns. Shadows beat down heavy on the distance, where the light radiating from the lantern clutched in Rosé’s free hand dares not tread. At the cusp of where sight meets obscurity stands a figure that wasn’t there before.

Just a moment ago, they were the tail end of the group that descended into the aqueducts as an escape from the catastrophe that was soon to fall upon Liore at Scar’s hands. Al didn’t agree with what the Ishvalan was doing, but his priorities laid more in saving the victims than punishing the perpetrators. So he stayed with the refugees that Lyra was leading to safety, remained at the back so that he could guard against pursuers and buy time if any less than friendly parties were to follow them.

But there were no footsteps. None that he could hear, echoing off the damp stone floor and competing for attention with the rushing water running lateral to their path. This person—they just _appeared_.

Slow, measured steps bring them forward. Al feels his hackles rise as the light tentatively peels the gloom from the newcomer’s features.

“You’re—”

The name he gave Al during their first encounter in East City was Auric Bradley, the Fuhrer’s recently-adopted eldest son who emerged four years ago from unknown origins. No attempts were made to hide the overlapping timelines, and really, Al should have known, should have known, should have _known_ the moment they happened to meet in the library that day. Should have been suspicious of the Fuhrer bringing his family along from Central in the first place, when the whole reason he and the Top Brass and all the State Alchemists fled was to escape Scar’s murderous wrath. If only he had known back then, been more skeptical, not shrugged off the uncanny similarities as mere coincidence.

Maybe it was planned, when Selim Bradley wandered up to him that day, his eyes bright with starry admiration. Al had softened beneath Selim’s glowing praise, his guard dropping and leaving him open for an unexpected blow to the heart—which is exactly what happened, when the elder Bradley sibling emerged from behind a bookcase to introduce himself.

Since Yock Island, he wrestled with the virtues of denial. Auric Bradley haunted the corners of his thoughts ever since Wrath, pale face bleached by the moonlight and newly amethyst-hued eyes manic and fanged grin ravenous, gleefully revealed the homunculi’s origins.

Any hope that Wrath was lying, or that Al simply imagined the striking similarities, is shattered when “Auric Bradley” comes to a stop, just close enough for the light to trace out the damning likeness. Likeness that is too great and too powerful to be just coincidence, or even the product of his imagination tracing a watermark over a stranger’s face. The attire is incongruous, the collared shirt and waistcoat and clean slacks and polished shoes more befitting the image of a high-born aristocrat’s son than the person Al remembers. But everything else slots terrifyingly into place.

Long sunshine-hued hair pulled back into a streaming tail. Flopping bangs fall across angular features. Shadows offset smoldering yellow eyes.

He looks _exactly_ like Al thought he would have, if they were allowed to grow up together.

“Alphonse,” the creature begins, frosty with accusation, and Al feels a chill drip down his spine.

* * *

There was a fight. Over what, Al doesn’t remember. It isn’t important. They were petty children who communicated with their fists rather than their words. They had falling outs every other day and he would always—_always_—run off to the riverside to sulk until the time came to brush aside their little trifles in favor of their shared bond.

But he didn’t, this time. He wasn’t ready to let go. He wanted to stay mad. He went over to Winry’s instead. He didn’t _want_ to be found.

Mom found him instead, once night fell. Him and him only. Worry spread through the town. Search parties gathered. He peered out into the darkness, flashing Mom’s light from the window while she searched. Too sick with worry to sleep, his eyes burning, this wasn’t how the story went. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. 

At one in the morning, Mom returned, her purple dress dark and dripping from the waist down. A sopping backpack that wasn’t Al’s hung limp in one hand. Her face pale, eyes hollow, lip trembling. Unease gripped his chest as he tentatively approached, not understanding the wetness on her face, the shaking in her hands, the wobbling in her knees. He stared at the backpack, uncomprehending. They kept all their alchemy tools in it, chalk and books and scraps of parchment, and it shouldn’t have been wet.

_What happened?_ he asked, and when she didn’t answer, just leaned against the doorframe as if for support, he went on, voice quavering uncertainly, _Where’s—_

It remained unfinished, his question. Her knees hit the floor and her arms snared him into a hug that crushed his ribs and she buried her face into his hair and she _wept_.

No.

Time blurs, somewhere after that. Black attire and freshly tilled soil and an empty casket in the ground because they couldn’t find the body. Mom’s hand eclipsing his own, a veil over her face as her shoulders shook. His eyes red and burning from tears, rendering the tombstone’s inscription too blurry to read. Not coming home until after the sun set because it’s all his fault, all his fault, all his fault, _all my fault_—

Grief and desperation and obsession and the forbidden books in the study. Begging Teacher to take him under her wing and getting Mom to reluctantly agree. Calculations forged on guilt and loneliness and delusional arrogance. Shivering as chalk lines were traced out on the basement floor.

A vat of ingredients. Transmutation light, glorious and resplendent and golden.

Sudden shift, purple-black and ominous. Pain so sudden and ferocious it stole his vision. The Gate’s parting doors. Blood all over the cement. Burning stumps where his arm and leg used to be.

Lights flickering. Mist clearing. Can’t see straight. Labored breathing, not his. Looking up, darkly hopeful.

_Brother, is that...?_

Twisted mess, not human. Spearing ribs and pulsing innards and so much blood and not human not human not human not—

_scream_

* * *

“Little brother.” In the present, the creature wearing Edward’s face smiles, thin and cold. “Why didn’t you make me right?”

**Author's Note:**

> AU I've been toying around with for a while and late installment for August. I'll see if I can get September's out before October ends.
> 
> Somehow most of my super angsty AUs are rooted in '03 canon. Weird.
> 
> Title from the lyrics of "Lethargy" by Bastille (Album: Wild World).


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